I may have blogged about this before, but it’s been on my mind again recently. It seems to me that the church is lagging behind in this technological age. There have been so many advancements, especially in the area of global communications (HELLO!), that it almost seems like many congregations choose not to keep up.

What worked in the ’50s and ’60s works today, right? Maybe to an extent. But we need to start doing a better job at reaching people where they are.

Facebook has over 400 million users. There are over 25 million on Blogger alone, not to mention WordPress, Tumbler, etc. Twitter has grown exponentially in the last 2 or 3 years.

And most churches can’t even figure out how to make a decent website.

Recent research has shown that more than 2/3 of first time visitors will visit a church’s website long before darkening the front doors. Wake up call, anyone?

But you may argue that the gospel message spread across the world centuries before the internet came along. You would be right about that.

But the first Christians did make use of the latest and greatest technologies available at the time. They used the fastest ships and the nicest roads. They adapted local customs and beliefs to be used in such a way that the gospel became more applicable and relevant.

Christians were even at the forefront of arguably the single greatest advancement in human history: the book. The earliest form of the book came on the scene in 1st century Rome. It was called a Codex, and it was to the scroll what the iPad is to the typewriter. It was cheaper to make, easier to use, and much, much more portable – which comes in handy when you are fleeing persecution.

So when churchgoers today argue that we don’t need all this technology in the church and that it’s not an important part of the Great Commission, just remember that the earliest Christians would beg to differ.

Maybe we should try harder at imitating the earliest Christians by using all available means of spreading the gospel to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.